<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Just A Regular Ray of Sunshine by AstridContraMundum</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26254108">Just A Regular Ray of Sunshine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum'>AstridContraMundum</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Endeavour (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff and Crack, M/M, Modern AU, friendship fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:22:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26254108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorothea convinces Morse to head off on a little undercover adventure ... and teaches him how to text....</p><p> <br/>(Another Florida Keys AU crackfic based off a crack tumblr post)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dorothea Frazil &amp; Endeavour Morse, Joss Bixby/Endeavour Morse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Just A Regular Ray of Sunshine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Apologies in advance!:D</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Dorothea Frazil sat hunched over her keyboard, her office silent save for the sharp click of keys under her fingers and the hum of a revolving fan in the corner, one that sent loose papers on her desk fluttering like butterflies as it nodded its circular head from side to side.</p><p> </p><p>The letters tracked across her screen in a steady stream of black on white, like grackles darting forward across the grass without the slightest pause of hesitation . . .</p><p>… until she reached the penultimate paragraph, that trickiest of all hurdles to jump.</p><p> </p><p>The last line of her articles, she always thought of first.</p><p> </p><p>It was that last step in getting there—that second to the last thought—wherein the difficulties lay.</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea paused and sat back, taking a sip of pineapple Fanta from a can warming on her desk, her eyes still trained on her screen.</p><p>And then, just as she set the can down and began to type once more, a new sound interrupted the static of her sentences, one quite altogether different—soft, uncertain— a tentative knock on her half-open office door. </p><p> </p><p>“Yes?” she called, glancing up.</p><p> </p><p>The door swung forward, then, as one of her freelancers slouched inside—a man who always signed his articles with the enigmatic byline of <em>E. Morse.</em> He was dressed, as was his typical fashion, in a summer V-neck sweater over a white Oxford shirt with a matching blue tie and khaki Bermuda shorts— all crisp and buttoned-up, despite the humidity, looking more like someone who was just setting off on a walking tour of the Lake Country than someone who had just driven down to Key West with the top down in a little red Porsche.</p><p> </p><p>He was also wearing an incongruously quizzical look on his face. </p><p> </p><p>“You wanted to see me?” he asked.</p><p>“Yes,” she replied. “Bixby mentioned that you know something about art.”</p><p> </p><p>The uncertain expression cleared away in an instant, as Morse huffed a little breath of contempt in reply.</p><p> </p><p>“What? He’s not showing off that counterfeit Claesz again, is he?”</p><p>“You’re sure that it’s counterfeit?” Dorothea asked, shrewdly. “Bix was telling me at that party the other night that he bought it from an art dealer from Amsterdam, when he was up in Miami last month.”</p><p>“It’s a fake,” Morse said. “A copy. A good one. But …”</p><p> </p><p>He shrugged then, dismissively.</p><p> </p><p>“The real one hangs in the Rijksmuseum. I’ve seen it.”</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“So….” she asked, “If you were to have a look at a few other paintings, do you think you might be able to tell whether or not they were the real thing? Or is it only in the realm of the Dutch masters where your expertise shines?”</p><p> </p><p>Morse was silent for a moment, as if he was unsure as to whether or not she was making fun of him.</p><p>“Why do you ask?” he asked.</p><p> </p><p>She lifted her foot and set it on the metal base of the extra chair in her office, then, and wheeled it across the tile floor towards him, indicating for him to sit down. </p><p> </p><p>Morse looked down at the chair, rather mournfully, Dorothea thought, and then sat down slowly, as if to show his hesitancy in getting involved in…</p><p>Well.</p><p> . . . . in whatever it was she was planning to rope him into.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s an old house, just a few blocks off of Duval Street, that’s up for auction,” Dorothea said. “It belonged to a Dr. Huntington, an old eccentric, a bit of a recluse, really, who moved away to Pensacola sometime in the late nineties, leaving the house closed up. It’s all been sitting there, for nigh on thirty years, the house and all of its contents.”</p><p>“Mmmmmm,” Morse said.</p><p>“Word is, in his younger days, Huntington was a bit of a collector. That perhaps there are a few real treasures in there. Only they’re not letting the press in. The auction company has been sending us press releases every other day, trying to build the hype up. But I want to know the real story.”</p><p>“How will you do that?” Morse asked.</p><p>“I think you mean, ‘how will <em>we</em> do that?”</p><p> </p><p>Morse looked at her, his unhappiness with her shift in pronouns clear on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“Surely, there are more important things going on right now,” he said, “than what might be stored in some mad old man’s house.”</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea frowned.</p><p> </p><p>Because it was true; there were.</p><p>Of course, there were.</p><p>There always were.</p><p> </p><p>But sometimes…</p><p>Every now and then….</p><p> </p><p>“Of course, there are,” Dorothea said. “But this will be fun. Where’s your sense of adventure, Morse?”</p><p> </p><p>Morse looked, if possible, even more disquieted at that, as if he thought perhaps the sun had gotten to her, and so, before he could say anything more, she set a heavy camera down smartly on the desk before him.</p><p> </p><p>“We aren’t with <em>The Conch Republic Mail,”</em> she said, briskly. </p><p>“We aren’t?” Morse asked.</p><p>“No. We’re insurance appraisers, sent by the estate from a firm in London.”</p><p>“And how are we going to convince anyone of that?”</p><p>She gave him a brisk nod.</p><p>“Your accent is our passport,” she said. “They won’t want to send someone away who’s<em> flown out all this way</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Morse regarded her blankly. </p><p>“I’ve only just driven down from Bixby’s,” he said.</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea quirked a smile.</p><p>For someone so clever, he could be awfully literal-minded.</p><p> </p><p>“Especially someone as important as yourself,” she added pointedly. </p><p> </p><p>Finally, it seemed, Morse was cottoning on, and his face flushed slightly pink. </p><p>“My accent’s not all that posh, really.”</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea laughed and rose from her chair.</p><p>“You’re in Florida, Morse,” she said. “Just about any English accent is a posh accent.”</p><p> </p><p>Morse was about to protest further—he definitely was one who liked to keep things on the up and up, never one to do anything the slightest bit underhanded.</p><p> </p><p>But then he shrugged, as if to say, “<em>why the hell not?”</em>, and stood to join her.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>Dorothea and Morse strolled down the sidewalk, a blaze of heat reflecting from off the smooth, white-gray surface despite the cover of the trees drifting overhead.  </p><p>The trees at the height of summer were a triumph of lush green, thick enough to shutter the blueness of the sky, but not the strength of the sun at midday, and—all along the white picket fences they passed—orange daylilies grew wild, vying with fat yellow irises as bright as banana popsicles, each arranged with a perfect stillness, as if even the blossoms were too hot to move.</p><p> </p><p>They had barely made it past a few shops, down to the corner, when Dorothea saw him: a slender man in a tight, lime-green shirt tucked into slim-fitting black pants, his hair slicked back so as to gleam like glass in the sun.</p><p>Dorothea cursed under her breath.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Morse asked.</p><p> </p><p>She nodded discreetly.</p><p> </p><p>“Peter Jakes,” she said. “He’s already here, buzzing around like a vulture.”</p><p> </p><p>It was a problem, to be sure. What the hell was Jakes always coming down here, for? God knows there was enough going on in Miami, wasn’t there, without him churning out his amusing little pieces on the Keys? What was worse, he always seemed to be mocking the place, as if convinced that everyone south of Key Largo must be some sort of hopeless misfit.</p><p> </p><p>She took Morse by the sleeve, intending to guide him along with her as she ducked down a side street, but already, Jakes’ sharp and deep-set eyes had spotted them from halfway down the road.</p><p>To bolt now would be to raise suspicion.</p><p>Dorothea grimaced, resolved to circumvent him.</p><p> </p><p>It was hardly the most important story, as Morse had said, but for some reason, on this day of all days, a spirit of mischief had fallen upon her, and she felt wryly determined to beat Jakes at the old game between them. And so, she continued forward, sauntering on as if she had just so happened to be passing that way. </p><p> </p><p>“Hello, Dorothea. Morse,” Jakes said.</p><p>“Hello,” Dorothea replied.</p><p> </p><p>It was incredible: it was a dripping 90 degrees in the shade, but the man had not one hair out of place, did not appear even to be breaking out into a sweat. Whatever hair product he was using, it must have been developed by NASA.</p><p> </p><p>“So. Morse,” Jakes asked, his eyes raking him over.  “Where you off to with that camera?”</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea clenched her jaw, willing Morse to say anything, come up with any story, other than the truth.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m taking photographs to send back home, to friends in Oxford,” he said.</p><p> </p><p>Jakes pulled his cigarette from his lips and laughed, most likely at the idea that Morse might have any friends to send photographs home <em>to.</em></p><p> </p><p>Morse said nothing, simply watched him impassively, and just then, in the trees above, a lovelorn cicada began to buzz in an ascending hum, accentuating the awkward silence that had fallen between them.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Dorothea said, keen to put an end to the interview. “Nice running into you again, Peter.”</p><p>“I’m in no rush,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, no,” Morse breathed.</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea turned to him sharply. If they had been sitting at a table, she would have kicked him under it.</p><p> </p><p>But then, she realized that Morse was looking off, further down the street.</p><p>Dorothea followed his gaze to see Fred Thursday, his hat pushed down low over his eyes so as to cast his face in shade, coming down the sidewalk carrying his pet alligator, Little Laddie, who today was dressed in a child’s baby blue smock shirt.</p><p> </p><p>It was a godsend. Utter serendipity. </p><p> </p><p>Perhaps Thursday was just the distraction she’d been hoping for…</p><p> </p><p>Thursday was a bit of a colorful figure in the Keys. Word was, he had adopted Little Laddie when he found him living in some backyard somewhere, housed in a cramped and dismal little pen.</p><p>He had stepped right over the fence, the story ran, rescued Little Laddie, lit up a citronella torch, and …</p><p> </p><p>Well.</p><p>Jim Strange cleaned it all up in the end.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Looky here,” Thursday called, cooing to the gator as though it were a child. “If it isn’t your Uncle Morse.”</p><p> </p><p>Dorothea smiled.</p><p>Somehow, Thursday was under the impression that Morse was particularly fond of Little Laddie.</p><p> </p><p>He wasn’t.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Hello,” Morse said.</p><p>“Hold him a minute for me, will ya? I wanna get myself a quick drink. Hottern’ hell today,” Thursday said, in his lazy and gravelly drawl.</p><p>“Mmmmm?” Morse asked. “Sorry?”</p><p>“I said ‘hold him a minute for me.’ Sweet Jesus, son. You’re slower than molasses in January today.”</p><p> </p><p>“He wants you to hold his alligator for him, Morse,” Jakes said.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Morse said, whether in understanding or in protest, Dorothea couldn’t quite tell; but it was too late, anyway, as already Thursday was bundling Little Laddie into Morse’s arms.</p><p> </p><p>Morse scooped up the alligator right as Little Laddie moved his elongated snout, playfully swiping at Morse’s jawline, and Morse recoiled, bucking away while holding the reptile as far as his arms’ length would allow.</p><p>“Now why did you wanna go and do something like that for?”  the old man said, admonishing his pet. “Be right back,” he added, and then headed off for a small food truck parked along the curb.</p><p> </p><p>“Can you … can you understand what he’s <em>saying?</em>” Morse hissed. “I can barely make out a word. I don’t know why he thinks this alligator and I are particular friends.”</p><p>“I think it’s endearing, really,” Dorothea said. “Not like he warms up to most people.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who the hell is that guy?” Jakes asked.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s a bit of a character. A self-appointed defender of Keys wildlife, I suppose you could call him. There’s a man down here called Alan Jago. Up to his eyeballs, they say, in the illegal pet trade, and Thursday has butted heads with him quite a lot. Just last month, for example,  Jago got thoroughly drunk and injured a manatee while tearing around on his Jet Ski. Thursday got wind of it, and a few days later, he blew the Jet Ski up. Put a lit rag in the gas tank.”</p><p>“You’re joking,” Jakes said.</p><p>“He might do for a feature,” Dorothea replied. “Don’t they love that up there? A bit of local color? <em>“Florida man,</em>’ and all that? …. The AP might even pick it up.”</p><p> </p><p> Jakes’ thin face looked thoughtful.</p><p> </p><p>“You should talk to Jim Strange, too,” she added. “He’s a park ranger over at Bahia Honda. He could tell you some tales, I’m sure. He’s the only one who can reel Thursday in, really.”</p><p> </p><p>It was too much: she was being too helpful, and Jakes’ heavy brows knit together in suspicion.</p><p> </p><p>“Since when do you give me leads?” he asked.</p><p>“It’s old news down here,” Dorothea shrugged. “Just thought you might be interested.”</p><p> </p><p>Jakes was still regarding her, his usual cynicism stamped across his face.</p><p>Best to change the subject, to throw him off the track.</p><p> </p><p>She turned, then, to Morse, casting about for some other topic. </p><p> </p><p>“Did you and Bix see your show last night? Endeavour?”</p><p> </p><p>Morse huffed at that, and, too late, she realized that the sentence could have been heard a different way, could have been heard as: <em>“Did you and Bix see your show last night, Endeavour?”</em></p><p> </p><p>“It’s not <em>my</em> show,” he said, giving her a veiled glance, as if he let her know he didn’t appreciate even this subtle hint as to his name, which she knew only from necessity, from issuing his 1099s.</p><p> </p><p>“That was quite a finale, that whole gothic shoot-out in the graveyard,” Dorothea said.</p><p>“What’s this?” Jakes asked.</p><p>“Endeavour. You know. It’s one of those mystery shows on PBS.”</p><p>“Oh,” Jakes said, taking another drag on his cigarette and then blowing out a steady stream of smoke. “Yeah. One of those shows about old ladies having tea and plotting about who’s going to run the local hospital, right? Or some rich girl causing a big brouhaha by running away with the chauffeur? I never watch any of that. I prefer a little more action myself.” </p><p> </p><p>Little Laddie swung his tail, and Morse widened his eyes in alarm, shifting his weight so as to gather him up.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s funny,” Dorothea said. “You seemed to have perfectly described the plot of Downton Abbey.”</p><p>“Never heard of it,” Jakes said.</p><p>“Really,” Dorothea replied. “You seem to know an awfully lot about it.”</p><p>“Oh, look,” Jakes said. “Here’s your friend.”</p><p>Thursday was rolling back across the street, sipping thoughtfully on a drink held in a coconut shell and garnished with pineapple chunks. Dorothea wondered how he would reclaim his alligator while holding onto such an elaborate creation, and, from the look on Morse’s face, he was wondering much the same thing—wondering if he might be condemned to containing the squirming animal until the old man had finished his drink at his leisure.</p><p> </p><p>The look didn’t escape Thursday’s notice, either. </p><p>He regarded him for a moment, shaking his head. </p><p> </p><p>“You’re just a regular ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” he asked.  </p><p>Then he reached out with one arm, ready to scoop up Little Laddie, even as Morse struggled to pass him the animal, who was now thrashing in excitement at Thursday’s return.</p><p>The old man perched the alligator up on his shoulder and smiled at Morse wryly. But it was a smile full of fondness, all the same.</p><p> </p><p>“Peter Jakes,<em> Miami Herald</em>,” Jakes said, cutting in and giving Thursday a curt nod. "Do you think I might get a photograph?"</p><p>“Little Laddie loves getting his picture taken,” Thursday said.  "Don't you, sugar?" he asked, as the gator grazed his face as if in a kiss. </p><p> </p><p>Morse, in the meanwhile, simply stood there, as if he had never seen anything so fantastical in his life.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>Once they turned the corner and made their way down two more blocks, it was clear they were as good as golden, that Jakes, busy with Thursday, had lost their trail.</p><p> </p><p>Soon, the old white gingerbread house was coming into view, and Dorothea, in one brisk movement, spun Morse around with her so that the house was behind them, raised up her phone, and took a photo of the pair of them, there on the sidewalk.</p><p>“What was that for?” Morse asked, mulishly.</p><p>“I just thought we should memorialize the occasion. Bix didn’t think I could get you out here, you know. Thought I could use the proof.”</p><p>“Oh, didn’t he?”  Morse asked darkly. </p><p> </p><p>Morse looked as cross as a possum woken midday from a woodpile, as if didn’t appreciate the thought that they’d been discussing him behind his back.</p><p>Then his face fell into a look of far-away thoughtfulness, and he turned to tug on his ear.  </p><p> </p><p>“Can you… could you send it to him?  The picture?” Morse asked.</p><p>“You could send him one yourself if you had a phone. When are you going to get a one?”</p><p>“I have a phone,” Morse protested.</p><p>“No,” she said, flashing her phone in her hand, so that it caught the deflection of sun. “Not a landline. I mean a phone I might <em>actually</em> be able to reach you on, without leaving a barrage of messages that I’m sure you scarcely listen to.”</p><p>“Oh,” Morse said. “Well. You know.”</p><p>“Know<em> what?</em></p><p> </p><p>“If I had one of those .... wouldn’t people, I dunno ....  try to <em>contact </em>me?”</p><p> </p><p>He said the last few words as if the very idea represented a horrifying thought, like it was a ring of his ever-loving Dante’s Inferno.</p><p>Dorothea rolled her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“So. Will you? Send it?” he asked. “Do you have Bixby’s number?”</p><p>“I have everybody’s number,” Dorothea replied. “But I’ll do you one better. You can send it yourself.”</p><p> </p><p>She passed him her phone, then, and Morse took it, handling it as if he thought the thing might explode.... but, with a bit of coaching, he figured it out quickly enough.</p><p> </p><p><em>“I’m here,”</em> he typed, striking each letter with care. It was a terse enough message, but one which Bixby was bound to know came from Morse, rather than from her.</p><p> </p><p>She showed him how to hit the blue arrow, sending the message and then the photo, and Morse smiled, looking down at the small screen. </p><p> </p><p>Their jaunt today was the sort of lark that Bixby— with his love of a bit of dissembling, of a bit of flair and daring and nerve—would soundly appreciate, and Morse seemed quite pleased with himself, at having defied all of Bixby’s expectations.</p><p> </p><p>And, sure enough, in the next moment, a message full of emojis came back, ringing with pride in a string of stars and champagne bottles and then a long flourish of hearts.</p><p> </p><p>Morse looked at it and snorted. </p><p> </p><p>“He doesn’t have to make<em> that</em> big deal of it,” he said. </p><p> </p><p>His handed her back the phone and turned away, but before he did, she saw that his face had colored in a way that had nothing to do with the midday sun, and that a look of almost daft happiness was growing there, just as tangles of blushing muscadine and mulberries grow, by rights where they ought not to be.</p><p> </p><p>He looked younger—and, honestly, far more stupid—than she had ever seen him.</p><p>But it was nice, really.</p><p> </p><p>Morse had been right, back at the office. </p><p>There were more important stories.</p><p> </p><p>Well might Morse wonder what they were doing there.</p><p> </p><p>On that night years ago, when the lights in the office had suddenly gone out, when a pair of toughs had torn up the place after she had run that piece on Booth Cove Condominiums, Morse had been the first one to arrive on the scene. Well she remembered how he had stood in the center of the room, anger blazing hot in his usually cool, austere face.</p><p>But then, as she had turned away to start up her desktop, to write a follow-up as though the thing had never happened, his expression had contorted once more, into one of incredulity.</p><p> </p><p>He had spun around, and charged off in a fury, off to who-knew-where. To Bixby, who doubtless had “contacts” of his own? To Thursday, who could handle such matters with no contacts whatsoever? </p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t known him well enough then to know that he would do neither of these things—but rather that he had stormed off to the offices of Frobisher himself, brandishing counter-threats of his own.</p><p> </p><p>If she had known him better, back then—if she would have dreamed then that he would have done such a thing—she would have stopped him, but, at the time, she had been concentrating on keeping up her own poker face.</p><p> </p><p>Because that was what she did.</p><p>She was tough, she was driven, she always got the story. Everyone who knew her knew that, knew better than to stand between her and the truth. </p><p> </p><p>But what they didn't know, was, that sometimes, even she felt pressed down by the weight of it all. That sometimes each word was an act of labor rather than of love. That the truth is not as strong as people say, that it’s really only a thing as tender as a yellow tiger swallowtail balancing on a sprig of lantana—one breath of the wrong word, and it flits away. </p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, when she sat down at her desk, she found her fingers didn’t want to obey her, but rather wanted to race away in a flurry as fast as the patter of summer rain on an old tin roof. Sometimes, they wanted to type out something quite different—some stupid little story, really—a story about just a regular day in the sunshine, about the sort of day when you stand on a street corner with a group of people you never would have known if you hadn’t left your chair and wandered outside your of door, but who you find you have a real affection for, all the same. </p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, she was quite tempted to change her course mid-paragraph, to stop in the midst of whatever article she was working on, and tell another tale instead, one about a quiet summer’s day. The sort of day when—cicadas buzzing and bumblebees humming— you see your best friend smile in a way you hadn’t thought possible before, so that you come to realize that perhaps he really is in love. That—just perhaps, say—he’s even happy. And your own heart feels all the lighter for it.</p><p>Sometimes, she even feels she won’t be able to tell any other story.</p><p>Until she’s finally told it.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>